WASHINGTON -- The UAW and Germany’s largest autoworker union, IG Metall, have joined forces to push for improved wages and working conditions at the U.S. plants of German auto and parts manufacturers.

The new project, dubbed the Transnational Partnership Initiative, will also advocate for German-style works councils or similar arrangements in the United States where plant workers and management make decisions about working conditions, shifts, wages and other workplace issues, according to a UAW statement today.

“The unions believe some German manufacturers are exploiting low-wage environments in the U.S. South, where working conditions -- including health and safety situations -- tend to be challenging for employees,” the UAW said in its statement.

The initiative was announced today at a press conference at a UAW Local in Spring Hill, Tenn. The TPI will open an office in Spring Hill. IG Metall says some 100,000 workers are employed at German-owned automakers and suppliers in the United States.

“We know that employee wages and benefits -- on a relative basis -- are lower than they’ve been in previous years,” UAW Secretary Treasurer Gary Casteel said at today’s press conference, according to prepared remarks. “Put differently: While the auto industry is thriving again, many hard-working Americans haven’t been able to fully share in that success like they did in years past.”

The project deepens ties between the UAW and IG Metall after the two have worked together to organize workers at the U.S. plants of Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen.

The push for a German-style works council at the VW factory in Chattanooga, Tenn., has been the UAW’s highest profile effort to organize workers at a foreign-owned plant in the southern U.S. recently.

The effort has drawn the UAW to the powerful IG Metall trade union, whose former boss Berthold Huber was named interim chairman of VW AG’s supervisory board following the resignation of Ferdinand Piech last spring. Huber has been a vocal proponent of the UAW’s organizing drive at the VW’s Tennesee factory, urging workers in a 2013 letter to join the union, Reuters reported at the time.

But in a statement that closely followed the UAW’s announcement, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said German-style works councils contradict U.S. labor law, which places restrictions on management’s involvement with employee representation groups.

“The UAW might advocate for something they call a ‘works council,’ but in reality it would be nothing more than a traditional union local,” Glenn Spencer, vice president of the U.S. Chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative, said in a statement.